Search results

Popular literature argues that successive generations are experiencing more job changes and changes of employer. The “new careers” literature also proposes that career mobility patterns are becoming more diverse as people engage in more downward and lateral job changes and changes of occupation. The purpose of this paper is to test these assertions by comparing the career mobility patterns across four generations of workers.

The authors analyzed the career mobility patterns of four generations of Canadian professionals (n=2,555): Matures (born prior to 1946); Baby Boomers (1946-1964); Generation Xers (1965-1979) and Millennials (1980 or later). Job mobility, organizational mobility and the direction of job moves were compared across groups through analysis of variance.

Significant differences were observed in job mobility and organizational mobility of the various generations, with younger generations being more mobile. However, despite significant environmental shifts, the diversity of career patterns has not undergone a significant shift from generation to generation.

This is the first quantitative study to examine shifting career mobility patterns across all four generations in today’s workplace. The authors extend previous research on generational differences in job mobility by using novel measures of career mobility that are more precise than extant measures.

Western marketers typically find the Japanese distribution system perplexing and difficult to penetrate. In fact, US trade negotiators have accused the Japanese government of deliberately limiting the access to distribution by foreign manufacturers. The situation may have reached a boiling point when the Clinton Administration retaliated by unilaterally imposing a 100 per cent tariff on Japanese luxury cars. However, a socio‐cultural rather than a purely economic perspective is needed to understand the system if US marketers are to make successful inroads in Japan’s markets. Develops a globally generalizable framework rooted in social exchange theory that explains the structure by which distribution activities can be compared across national boundaries. Uses the framework to compare how the Japanese and US distribution systems work. Discusses implications that challenge current policies in both the public and private sectors.

The problem of workers at risk should be reframed to reflect the impact of social stratification, power relations and divergent interests in occupational health practices. The past two decades have seen rapid developments in technology for detecting genetic traits and abnormalities in individuals that may indicate damage from chemical exposure. Occupational physicians, industrial managers and biomedical scientists increasingly favour this technology. However these methods have only selective appeal and are quite controversial. Their accuracy in identifying high‐risk workers is disputed as well as their value and consequences. Social factors that shape the way workers at risk have been defined are discussed. These social processes help to explain the way issues of risk are framed and industrial practices are conducted. They also explain patterns of support and opposition to genetic technology.

Public administration has become the victim of its own success. Public policy making and problem solving during the first three decades after WWII began from an assumption that public managers had the competence to overcome policy barriers. The ʼdo more with less” slogan was a statement of professional competence. It was adopted because many believed it was an affirmation of that competence. Now it represents a fiscal demand as a scold to those who will otherwise waste the money. What the public hears is a perverse joke. The goal must be more effective governance, by approaching fiscal stability as a strategic enterprise. The potential tools for more effective services exist and are applied by governments across the globe. Yet the public clings to failed practices (NPM) that are best when dealing with short-term issues

This paper seeks to explore one particular aspect of recent PA research: the apparently widening gap between top academic research and practitioner concerns. This topic was commissioned by the Editor of IJPSM. Evidence of this sliding away from the “real world” is presented. The reasons for it are discussed including Q1 increased measurement, competition and professionalization within academia. Whilst these trends bring significant benefits, a case can nevertheless be made for re-balancing PA research. The purpose of this paper Q2 is to sketch some ways of approaching these trends.

This paper was commissioned by the editor. The author has chosen to examine the often-cited gap between academic research and current practitioner concerns. The author has done this using as the author’s main evidence base all the main articles published by the highest impact journals over the years 2015 and 2016.

Over the past 30 years more and more of the PA research published in the highest impact journals has become further and further removed from the immediate concerns of practicing administrators and managers. At the same time publication in these journals has become more salient for academic careers.

Whilst the identified trends bring significant benefits (in terms of increasing professionalization and methodological sophistication) they also carry negative consequences for the historically important dialogue between academics and practitioners. A case can be made for attempting to re-balance PA research. Some ways of approaching this are sketched.

The academic practitioner dialogue, which, historically, has been vital for academic PA, is currently under some stress. Professionalization and competition within the academic world seem to have widened the gap between the top journals and the “real world.” A case is made that the PA academic community needs to find ways of giving this issue more systematic discussion.

If the argument is largely correct, then current trends threaten the future of academic PA research. This paper is not the first to identify this threat, but it is one of the first to give it extended consideration and systematically to consider possible causes and remedies.

Minnowbrook III pre-conference retreat participants were asked to submit a critique of the field of public administration in advance of the September 3, 2008, gathering. In looking broadly at this request the author determined that our organizational structures and institutions were not changing as quickly as the environment in which they are embedded. His critique suggests that the five key challenges for todayʼs administrators are to (1) create flexible response mechanisms, (2) pursue civil and economic equity, (3) build citizen knowledge, (4) think in terms of governance, and (5) understand and steer globalization.

Over the course of the past 40 years Wilson's theory of local political culture has influenced many students of policing. Wilson argued that variation in structural arrangements in police organizations can be explained largely by the form of municipal government structure in place. For example, police departments using a strict law enforcement style of policing tend to work within a more bureaucratic structure (e.g. hierarchically differentiated) than their counterparts employing a watchman style of policing. The purpose of this study is to test the application of Wilson's theory of local political culture in today's police organizations.

Longitudinal agency survey data for 280 police departments collected through the 1990s were analyzed using a random‐effects panel technique.

The findings observed suggest that there was only a very limited relationship between local political culture and the five principal dimensions of organizational structure — formalization, centralization, functional differentiation, specialization differentiation, and occupational differentiation derived from Peter Blau's measures among these police agencies during the 1990s.

The theory of local political culture may have limited utility in the analysis of the structural arrangements in contemporary police organizations. At the same time, a longer period of time is required in the study of local political culture.

The identification of key determinants of structural arrangements in police organizations is an important issue because there is a lack of consensus on the role of local political culture. The research used two approaches and found that organizational structure in police agencies is largely determined by socioeconomic factors.

The study represented an original study of police organization, using panel data collected by the authors during the 1990s.

Reviewing the development of budgeting in America in the twentieth century, this article assesses where public budgeting is as it approaches the twenty-first century. Five periods are identified in American budgeting, drawing upon the work of Schick and Rubin: control, management, planning, prioritization and accountability. Budgeting in the 1990s is described as characterized by accountability and a “new” performance budgeting emphasis. The authors argue that the budget reform movement is still alive and well in American government, with local governments once more leading the way.

While many studies focusing on work values have been conducted, few of them were specifically focused on generational differences within the hospitality context. This study aims to explore the structure of hospitality management work values and the perceived differences among three generations of managers and supervisors in the hospitality industry.

A survey of 398 managers and supervisors from hospitality organizations in the USA was conducted.

A total of 15 work values were identified along with their hierarchical order. A four‐dimensional (comfort and security, professional growth, personal growth, and work environment) work value structure shared by hospitality workforce and generational differences in work values of the hospitality industry were found.

The findings of this study are limited to a managerial workforce of the hospitality industry in a US tourism destination.

Implications are drawn for industry to recruit and retain the managerial workforce using strategies designed to meet the preferences and needs perceived by three generations of managerial workforce.

There are three unique contributions: the uncovering of different priorities in work values across the three‐generation hospitality managers; the revelation of the four underlying dimensions of the structure of work values that represent the uniqueness of work values perceived by the hospitality managerial workforce; and the discovery of generational differences in work values in two of the four dimensions (i.e. personal growth and work environment) and the generational preference shift. These findings might contribute to the justification for different recruitment and retention strategies among various sectors of the hospitality industry according to generational value shifts.